Tag Archives: technology

Pretty interesting arguments made here, though I think an overlooked point is that the “fast” programmers are younger and, hence, cheaper. A couldn’t afford to be top heavy with people edging up on retirement. Yes we all wish it, but it isn’t possible.

I’ve worked in many high-tech startup companies in the San Francisco Bay area. I am now 52, and I program slowly and thoughtfully. I’m kind of like a designer who writes code; this may become apparent as you read on 🙂

Programming slowly was a problem for me when I recently worked on a project with some young coders who believe in making reallyfast, small iterative changes to the code. At the job, we were encouraged to work in the same codebase, as if it were a big cauldron of soup, and if we all just kept stirring it continuously and vigorously, a fully-formed thing of wonder would emerge.

I’ve been experimenting with some alternativepasswordmanagementschemes lately, which got me to thinking: what will replace passwords? They’ve been around a very long time, and yet remain largely unchanged as a mechanism, despite their ubiquity. They’re a little like toilet paper: they’re antiquated, they’re a pain in the ass if you use them too often, and they usually aren’t strong enough. Think of all of the things that have advanced so much in society over the last one thousand years, and passwords are still just some junk you remember. So what can be done about the fact that the only thing protecting out secrets is only as good as toilet paper?